I'm A Hornet from President Allison Garrett

March 17, 2017

Top Caliber

Congratulations to Emporia State senior guard Kelly Moten, who has been named the Division II Conference Commissioner's Association (D2CCA) Central Region Player of the Year after leading the Lady Hornets to their sixth straight regional championship game. She also was named MIAA Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year while earning First-Team All-MIAA and All-Defensive team honors for the third straight year.

Congratulations to Dr. Connie Schrock (Professor, Department of Mathematics & Economics) who was a featured speaker at the 2017 T3 International Conference March 10-12 in Chicago.

Arts & Sciences

ESU Mathematics Methods and Physical Science students took Emporia Middle School students and their parents around the world through 23 interactive math and science stations during Math Family Night on February 27.

Congratulations to ESU Professor Emeritus of Music Dr. Terry Barham, who was inducted into the Kansas Music Education Hall of Honor during a reception at the KMEA Annual Conference in Wichita on February 25. Dr. Barham served as Director of Choral Activities at ESU from 1987 until his retirement in 2010.

The Social Sciences department and the Public Affairs Club sponsored “Fixing Kansas’ Broken Budget,” bringing in former state budget director Duane Goosen.

More than 220 middle school girls from all over the state attended Enhancing Your Future at ESU, where they listened to two feature speakers and attended career discussion sessions and workshops led by over 50 women professionals in STEM careers.

Dr. Michael Smith, Dr. Gregory Schneider, Max McCoy and students Sarah Spoon and Valerie Dunn were panelists at the Department of Sociology and Crime and Delinquency Studies’ discussion on the beginning of the Trump administration.

Congratulations to Dr. John Barnett, who was awarded $1,200 in research support from the Emporia State Research and Grants Center.

The Community Internship Initiative, sponsored by the School of Business and Emporia Main Street, has been successful in creating six paid internships with local businesses in Spring 2017.

Nine students from Phi Beta Lambda competed at the 2017 Kansas State Leadership Conference, collectively placing 16 times and qualifying six students for the 2017 National Leadership Conference in June.

19 teams in the Emporia Entrepreneur Challenge advanced to the competition’s second stage. Semifinalists will have 15 minutes to pitch their final business plans to a panel of judges on April 3 and 4.

The Teachers College

On March 1, Dr. Carol Russell, Fletcher Russell and Dr. Rachelle Smith kicked off Women’s History Month with a panel discussion called Caring for a Loved One: Gendered Dimensions and Issues.

Dr. Heather Caswell and Dr. Jennie Long attended Harvard’s invititation-only Zaentz Early Education Initiative, “Pathways to Strong Early Learning Environments: Making High-Impact Decisions and Leading Improvement.”

ESU Art Therapy students invited faculty, students and administrators to send messages of welcome, unity and peace to Somali residents in Garden City, Kansas. After sewing the fabric flags together, the students delivered the messages.

The board of the Kansas Association for Health Physical Education Recreation & Dance (KAHPERD) recently announced its decision to hold the 2018 KAHPERD Convention at Emporia State University on October 25-26, 2018.

Library and Information Management

The School of Library Science and Management is happy to celebrate their 115 year anniversary.

SLIM will launch a new cohort location in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in Fall 2017. The ALA-accredited MLS is a 36-credit hour program that prepares students for professional work in libraries and information services.

Emily Alexander, Rachel Collinge and Samantha Setzer, SLIM students and members of SCALA, delivered food for Corky’s Cupboard.

SLIM will have new faculty members starting in Fall 2017. Dr. Anna Wong will be joining as an instructor and Michael Widdersheim will join as an assistant professor.

Congratulations to Kevin Pack, a SLIM student, who received research funding from the Scholars Circle Fund.

Congratulations to Perri Parise, SLIM Director Oregon MLS, who has been invited to serve as the American College and Research Libraries 2017-19 representative to the American Library Association Library Education Assembly.

SLIM faculty and staff met on March 7 in the Memorial Union for their annual spring retreat.

Athletics

Playing in their sixth straight regional championship game and third straight on their opponent’s court, the No. 6 Lady Hornets fell 58-56 to No. 10 Harding on Monday night in Searcy, Arkansas.

Five Hornet athletes earned a total of six First-Team All-American honors from the USTFCCCA for their efforts at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships in Birmingham, Alabama.

Competing in her first National Championship meet, Emporia State's Monica Howard placed 15th in the nation in the pentathlon at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships in Birmingham, Alabama.

Congratulations to Lady Hornets Kathryn Flott, who was named to the All-MIAA Second Team and Addie Lackey, who was named to the Third Team.

Alumni

Vendla Smith, an ESU graduate and director of Zinta Inspired Language, received the Difference Makers for Wichita award on February 25 for her company’s work eliminating communication barriers.

Two Emporia State University Instructional Design and Technology alumni, Josh Stock and Molly Swank, were honored with the “Making IT Happen” award at the Mid-America Association for Computers in Education conference.

Student Affairs

Partnership for a Healthier America highlighted ESU’s Healthy Hornet Challenge to universities around the country, using it as an example of an outstanding program and as encouragement to incorporate the program’s components on their own campuses.

Presentations

ESU alumnus Thomas MacLean Richardson will present his thesis research on Scottish immigration to the U.S. at the Third Annual Midwestern History Conference on June 7 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Tyler Johnson will deliver his presentation, “Kansas Unstoppable Pandemic: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918,” in April at the 2017 Kansas Association of Historians conference.

Dr. Yeol Huh presented "Closing the gap between intended and actual learning outcomes in a technology integration course for pre-service teachers" at the 28th Annual Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education conference in Austin, Texas.

Dr. George Yancey presented “How student and faculty/staff perceptions of diversity differ based on gender and sexual orientation” at the 2017 Gender & Sexuality in Kansas conference, held in Wichita.

Dr. George Yancey co-presented “Exploring diversity and inclusion within organizations with the ADDRESSING model” at the annual Southeastern Psychology Association conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

Publications

Dr. Sungwoong Lee co-wrote “Integrating Music into Math in a Virtual Reality Game: Learning Fractions” which was published in theInternational Journal of Game-Based Learning.

Three Teachers College faculty members were lead authors of articles in the Fall/Winter 2017 edition of The Advocate, published by the Kansas Association of Teacher Educators. The authors and works are as follows: